The first performance of Mozart's The Magic Flute took place on September 30 1791 in Vienna. Meanwhile, in Paris, the National Constituent Assembly was dissolved and replaced by the Jacobin-dominated Legislative Assembly.

On September 30, 1938, Neville Chamberlain returns from negotiations with Hitler in Münich, declaring they have reached an agreement that will ensure "Peace in Our Time." And in Geneva, the League of Nations votes to declare the aerial bombing of civilians illegal.

...Exactly one year later, the Molotov-Ribbentrop non-aggression pact between Nazi-Germany and the Soviet Union is signed.

The first performance of Mozart's The Magic Flute took place on September 30 1791 in Vienna. Meanwhile, in Paris, the National Constituent Assembly was dissolved and replaced by the Jacobin-dominated Legislative Assembly.

Although the majority of those Jacobins split with the society and went on to be known to history as the Brissotins or the Girondists who were later overthrown by the remaining Jacobins on the road to the Republic of Virtue.

The first performance of Mozart's The Magic Flute took place on September 30 1791 in Vienna. Meanwhile, in Paris, the National Constituent Assembly was dissolved and replaced by the Jacobin-dominated Legislative Assembly.

One of the things that makes the French Revolution so much harder to read about than the American Revolution is that the cast of characters changes so drastically from year to year. Now, part of that, of course, is because of the Final Blades (Vive le Galt!), but, also, there's this:

So, the Estates-General had morphed itself into the Constituent Assembly, and then Louis XVI tries to do a runner, and they vote to dissolve the monarchy and proclaim a republic. They set up elections for a new Legislative Assembly and then, on, like, the last day, Robespierre gets up and proposes a strict term-limit bill barring anyone who sat in the CA (including himself) from sitting in the LA!

So, you're reading along in the book and, all of a sudden, you have to be introduced to a whole new set of characters, and their backstories, and plotlines, etc., etc.!

So, you're reading along in the book and, all of a sudden, you have to be introduced to a whole new set of characters, and their backstories, and plotlines, etc., etc.!

It's very confusing.

That's the truth. I set out to read a translation once (My French isn't that good.) and ended up in part because of the absolutely sterile translation and in part because almost no effort was made to introduce the various figures. They just sort of appear. Some of that's understandable, what with it being written in French for a French audience, but it came off more like a deliberate style choice.

Maybe that's just how the francophone academy rolls. The closest thing I've seen from an anglophone writer aimed at a general audience is Margaret MacMillan's Paris, 1919. (I think it's The Peacekeepers in the rest of the world.) She was really good and taught me a lot, but the way she framed the book in sort of thematic chapters meant that some major events got alluded to and then never dealt with.

The Dutch village of Spakenburg is home to two of the Netherlands' most successful amateur football clubs, SV Spakenburg and IJsselmeervogels. The derby between them is known as "the Spellcheck derby."

The story of Robinson Crusoe was inspired by the actual story of Alexander Selkirk, a scottish sailor who joined the pirate crew of William Dampier and ended up stranded in Juan Fernandez island, a spit of land located hundreds of miles off the coast of Chile.

Unlike the book, though, Selkirk had to endure not a tropical paradise, but a horribly unforgiving barren rock punished by roaring winds, unruly waves and a persistent cold weather. Plus giant lobsters that have reportedly eaten people alive (no, really).

That same island served as a political prison during the XVIII and early XIX centuries, where the Spanish Crown sent Chilean independentists. Many of them carried valuable objects and documents with them, which they hid across the island to avoid being seized by Spanish officials (the prisoners were thrown into the island, but otherwise were free to move around it. Not that there was much to do, anyway). They are highly sought after by collectors and historians.

The island is also supposedly the place where the Spanish sailor Juan Esteban de Ubilla y Echeverria buried nearly 700 barrels of gold pieces in the early XVIII century. British sailor Cornelius Webb claimed to have found it and then buried it again because he was tailed by the Spanish navy.

Thus, Juan Fernandez island has been the obsession of several individuals thoughout the last two centuries, as the value of the treasure is estimated at 10 billion USD. So far, however, save from some intriguing evidence that seems to support Webb's tale, no one has been able to find it.

Until 1997, some British nuclear missiles were armed by turning a key in what was essentially a bike lock. To choose whether the bomb should explode in the air or on the ground, you turned dials using an Allen key, Ikea-style.

Among military security specialists*, it's well-known that at the height of the cold war, the "secret unlocking code" for America's nuclear missiles was 00000000.

*:

Says the reporter who's column I took this from, though I've heard the claim before.